# On Abolishing Taxes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033 "2013-09-17T06:57:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/61 "2013-09-20T03:52:18Z")
Libertarianism, IMO, basically just means that liberty justifies itself, and that the burden of proof is always on those who would restrict liberty. Anyone that agrees with that, in my eyes, is a libertarian. We can disagree on what impositions are justified and which are not. Now as for taxes, taxes are definitely justified, provided the money is spent in the interests of those paying the taxes, as in used mainly to do things we can’t do as individuals very well: have a military, police, firefighters, roads, mass transit, etc. I get a lot more queasy at the idea of the government doing a safety net, but that’s been around since long before I was born so I guess I have to accept it given that it’s a fixture of our society. But I’d resist any new attempts to pad the safety net. But even if we’re going with the most minimalist government, taxes are needed to fund it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/62 "2013-09-20T21:37:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Libertarianism, IMO, basically just means that liberty justifies itself, and that the burden of proof is always on those who would restrict liberty. So libertarians believe that it’s bad when private entities or individuals restrict the liberty of others? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/63 "2013-09-20T22:41:42Z")
I can’t speak for all libertarians, but to me, if liberties are directly restricted by private entities ,that could be a cause for government intervention. Depends on what liberties we’re talking about though and to what extent a private entity is restricting liberty. There’s a huge difference in power between a government and say, Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/64 "2013-09-20T23:22:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Libertarianism … liberty … liberty… So I have the liberty to go wherever I want to go, eat whatever I want to eat? No? Well then, why don’t you speak truth instead of repeating the single misleading word. What Libertarianism is really about is property rights, property rights, and property rights. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/65 "2013-09-20T23:25:02Z")
I said that the burden of proof is on those who would restrict liberty. Libertarianism is also about privacy, which is why libertarians have led the charge against NSA, while liberals have suddenly become complacent with their guy in office. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/66 "2013-09-21T00:28:32Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I said that the burden of proof is on those who would restrict liberty. That would be the Libertarians themselves. They want to restrict my right to pick apples, just because they have some artificial claim to the land the trees are growing on. I want those apples, and they are taking away my liberty to pick them! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/67 "2013-09-21T00:55:47Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > What Libertarianism is really about is property rights, property rights, and property rights. _There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn’t say nothing; This land was made for you and me._ ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/68 "2013-09-21T04:16:36Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > That would be the Libertarians themselves. They want to restrict my right to pick apples, just because they have some artificial claim to the land the trees are growing on. I want those apples, and they are taking away my liberty to pick them! It’s not an artificial claim. Chances are, they planted the tree and care for the tree, or bought it from someone who did. However, taking your claim that you have a fundamental right to steal from others(in the law of the jungle your argument has merit), we restrict the right to take what we can by force as part of forming a civilization. I’m not sure what the deal is with opposing property rights. One of the basic reasons man formed societies with laws is so that the strong wouldn’t prey on the weak by just taking whatever they wanted when they wanted it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/69 "2013-09-21T04:18:36Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > You have no natural right to property. Nor to anything else, for that matter, including life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/70 "2013-09-21T04:19:43Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Libertarianism is also about privacy . . . “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” – Scott McNealy ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/71 "2013-09-21T04:20:49Z")
We already pay 40% of our income in taxes, what’s wrong with just paying 100%? Same logic applies to privacy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/72 "2013-09-21T04:53:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not an artificial claim. Chances are, they planted the tree and care for the tree, or bought it from someone who did. > > However, taking your claim that you have a fundamental right to steal from others(in the law of the jungle your argument has merit), we restrict the right to take what we can by force as part of forming a civilization. > > I’m not sure what the deal is with opposing property rights. One of the basic reasons man formed societies with laws is so that the strong wouldn’t prey on the weak by just taking whatever they wanted when they wanted it. I’m not arguing that property rights aren’t important. They are a vital right. But they’re one right among many important ones. Too many libertarians seem to feel that property rights are the only right or at least that it’s the right that outweighs all the others. And many times they don’t even recognize they have this belief - they feel that liberty and property rights are synonymous and they get confused when somebody argues about a different interpretation of what liberty is. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/73 "2013-09-21T04:53:36Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We already pay 40% of our income in taxes, what’s wrong with just paying 100%? Same logic applies to privacy. Same nonlogic as the [Laffer Curve](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Laffer_Curve). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/74 "2013-09-21T05:46:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m not arguing that property rights aren’t important. They are a vital right. But they’re one right among many important ones. Too many libertarians seem to feel that property rights are the only right or at least that it’s the right that outweighs all the others. And many times they don’t even recognize they have this belief - they feel that liberty and property rights are synonymous and they get confused when somebody argues about a different interpretation of what liberty is. They are the rights most frequently under attack, thus the emphasis. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/75 "2013-09-21T06:05:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Same nonlogic as the [Laffer Curve](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Laffer_Curve). absolutely. I was just pointing out the illogic of inferring that privacy rights have no value since we have so much less privacy. First, we can still roll back the violations of our privacy that the government has imposed on us, and second, we can fight new attempted violations. If liberals would join libertarians in a reliable coalition on this one issue, we’d be winning this battle. Instead, liberals only form an alliance of convenience when a Republican President is in office. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/76 "2013-09-21T14:54:00Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They are the rights most frequently under attack, thus the emphasis. They only seem like the rights most frequently under attack if you interpret any attempt to find a balance between competing rights as an attack on property rights. They don’t need more defending because they’re in particular jeopardy. Rather they appear to be in particular jeopardy because you value them over everything else. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/77 "2013-09-21T16:27:35Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > [Property rights] are the rights most frequently under attack, thus the emphasis. You need help fighting your ignorance. In Texas, a man is allowed to kill an intruder with a shotgun with only slight excuse if the man has intruded on the shooter’s property. Have his property rights been eroded? (Now it is true that the rights of a woman to her own body are under attack. Are those the"property rights" you speak of?) In the U.S., people like the Koch Brothers are able to use their huge financial property to influence elections. Is your complaint about the very few restrictions that still remain? Disney continues to get huge profits from the intellectual property of A.A. Milne (whose heirs lost their share long ago). Is your complaint that Disney is unable to also copyright characters from Grimms’ or Aesop’s Fables? The celebration of property over people has led much tax burden to be shifted from rich property owners to ordinary people. I guess you’re complaining this trend hasn’t gone far enough? Rational observers widely agree that government props up the property values of banks and other financial institutions at public expense. Again, is your complaint that they don’t go far enough? America is almost a Utopia for economic thinkers of the _Dog-eat-dog_ school like yourself. If you know of a country that comes closer to your ideal, please tell us? The Friedmanist-Pinochet Chile? The Friedmanist experiments in Eastern Europe, Iraq, or South Africa? Medieval Ireland, as another Liberlunatic proposed? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/78 "2013-09-21T16:28:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Oh good, another believer has discovered the miracle of libertarianism. > > In the past, I might have attempted to explain why libertarianism can’t function in the real world. But this usually doesn’t impress libertarians because of their noted disdain for the real world. > > So I’ll make a more direct point. You have to pay taxes because we force you to. If you don’t pay your taxes we’ll send the police to arrest you and put you in prison. If you resist the police will kill you. > > Complain all you want that this isn’t fair. We don’t care. We’re bigger than you and we can do what we want to you. > > And I lied. The fact that libertarianism doesn’t have a response to what I just wrote explains why libertarianism can’t function in the real world. Libertarianism does indeed have a response to your claims. It says that it is immoral. If anyone accepts the current regime of taxation as legitimate, that person is at best amoral. If a person advocates for an increase in taxes to accomplish his or her desired interests (personal subsidy, foreign invasion, wealth transfers to his or her favored groups), that person should be educated on the immorality of his or her actions and ostracized from the community if they continue to participate in conspiracy to commit theft. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/79 "2013-09-21T16:38:08Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Libertarianism does indeed have a response to your claims. It says that it is immoral. > > If anyone accepts the current regime of taxation as legitimate, that person is at best amoral. If a person advocates for an increase in taxes to accomplish his or her desired interests (personal subsidy, foreign invasion, wealth transfers to his or her favored groups), that person should be educated on the immorality of his or her actions and ostracized from the community if they continue to participate in conspiracy to commit theft. You are the first libertarian I heard claim that libertarianism is based on morality. We have libertarians who post here that claim that morality is too subjective to form the basis of protecting liberty. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/80 "2013-09-21T16:45:59Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > You are the first libertarian I heard claim that libertarianism is based on morality. We have libertarians who post here that claim that morality is too subjective to form the basis of protecting liberty. Do you ever get the feeling that, if you gathered up all the staunch Libertarians and gave them a nice hunk of land(say, New Zealand), there would be total anarchy within a year? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033.md?page=5)